The creators of 2004’s fake hypermarket, Czech Dream, return with a second feature documentary, moving away from their country’s consumerist tendencies and to its knack of being occupied by military forces. Along their journey, the filmmakers are confronted with various presidents, pieces of false information, wartime pop tunes and a wild boar named Jonas.
The dominant colour of this film is orange. Does it show that Western burials are designed to shelter people from much of the reality of death?
Against tremendous odds, dozens of naked men and countless beers and tears, Finnish filmmakers Joonas Berghäll and Mika Hotakainen created an ode to their country’s men and its most soulful ritual.
The “secret war” takes us into the inconcievable reality of a war conducted in the shadow of the Vietnam war. As the film impies, the “secret war” is an ancestor of today’s U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
From San Francisco International Film Festival: Andrei Nekrasov and Olga Konskaya captured the immediate aftermath of the bombing, shooting, and looting during the intense 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia. Two other filmmakers focus on the everyday life of a single US army platoon stationed in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan – showing just how easy it was for the Taliban to defend their positions in the mountainous terrain.
The Cambodian Room takes us into the uncompromising and claustrophobic world of D’Agata’s search for the intrinsically human.
Tension escalates between North and South Korea after the torpedoing of a South Korean military ship in May. In North Korea, prison camps, murder, rape, gnawing starvation and freezing temperatures are all par for the course. How can the global community let such extreme oppression go on?
What are the ethical dilemmas of telling real stories in war time? And, to what extent will filmmakers go to tell those stories?
The Cinematography festival Camerimage in Poland in december is virtually the only one of its kind among the 370 lm festivals held worldwide. Both the festival and the town made a real impression. But where on Earth does our incurable urge to bear witness to a never-ending succession of images come from?
We are all obsessed with the universal law of morality. But in this film they make love without feelings; they cannot love; their power is to become their wound – one of the girls sees her actions as a slow death. But the film also turns the savage moments into a prayer.
Is all the talk about ‘national priorities’ in the aftermath of hurricanes, coups, and wars, usually just a cover for the imposition of the of-the-shelf policies of neoliberal economics? And is the US response to Haiti following this same form?
In the current period of global economic crisis, Kluge’s documentary can be seen as a toolbox for investigating what is happening to our modern lives. Marx is relevant because he was occupied by the forces extending our understanding of what it means to be real. But is cinema itself another form of capitalism?